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Closing the STEM Gender Gap
Percentage of Female College Enrollement
100
80
60
40
20
85 72
53
0
Harmony U.S. Texas
Percentage of Females Choosing STEM Majors
55 14.4 15.9
Harmony U.S. Texas
GIRLS WHO STEM
Harmony Aims to Close the Female STEM Representation Gap by Sadan Gunonu
As a Harmony employee and STEM graduate, Sadan Gunonu understood the impact a strong foundation in STEM could have on a person’s life.
As a proud “girl dad”, he encouraged his daughter Rabia early on to pursue a STEM career because of the prestige and high salary. However, he soon learned that pushing STEM based on those factors was not sufficient.
“I remember going to graduations for Computer Science at various universities, and most of the graduates were male.” Gunonu said.
“After some quick research I saw that males have outnumbered females in most STEM fields for years.”
Existing research consistently shows that there is underrepresentation of females in STEM areas. A key explanation rests on students’ attitudes towards an interest in STEM major careers. STEM course selection and participation in informal learning activities – such as after-school clubs like eSports – were found to be critical in students STEM major selection. However, the research showed that while male students were signing up for these classes and clubs out of self-interest, many female students needed extra encouragement to pursue their STEM interests due to a lack of historical representation.
Because of this, Gunonu did his research and chose Harmony for his daughter due to its STEM-focused mission and 100 percent college acceptance rate.
Not surprisingly, Harmony female students continue to choose STEM majors and careers at significantly higher rates than the state and national averages. In one study, female HPS students had a 30% higher college enrollment rate than other female Texas students, and 15% higher college enrollment rate than the U.S. average for female students. Female students at Harmony were also three times more likely than their Texas peers to choose STEM majors in college, and four times more likely than the U.S. average for female students.
“I can say we are happy [with Harmony],” Gunonu said, “because our daughter graduated from a good college, and has been working in a top five IT company for three years.”
